Ramblings and Recipes

I have been looking for a certain relative for a number of years. He is not a "close" relative, but I believe that he could help me in my search. I have looked at search sites, social media sites, phone number sites and more. It is like this person does not exist after a certain date. No wife, no children, no nothing. I was doing everything that I could do and having no luck doing it. To say that I was frustrated was very much an understatement!
Tonight, watching Forensic Files, got me to thinking about this person that I was looking for. I reached for my book, The Manual to Online Public Records, which I reviewed here recently. I flipped to the last state that I have any information on my missing relative to see if anything would stand out for me as a place to search. There was my lead. Sexual Offender Registry. Could it be? Would I find my person there? I went to the address and typed in the name. Sure enough, there was my "missing person." I was sad about his life situation, but I now understood why he fell off the radar.
When you are looking for someone that seems to disappear, look in cemeteries, obituaries, city, county, parish, state and federal jail and prison records. Look in neighboring communities as well.
I have noticed that with prisoners who die in prison, it is very rare to see an obituary. If there ever is one, I have never seen an obituary for an everyday person note that the person died in jail or prison. I am sure that there are exceptions, however, I have never seen them.
Another place to look for your missing person is in local newspapers in the "Police Blotter" section. It may be called something else, but do take the time to look around.
There was a newspaper in a small coastal town in Texas that used to publish photographs of everyone that had been arrested for drunk driving. I don't know if they still do that, but the first time I saw it, I was appalled. I thought about how embarrassing it would be to live in that town and have a moment like that captured for a newspaper. Talk about an incentive to be good!
Finally, get in touch with the relatives closest to this person. Were they troubled? A drifter? Chemical addictions? Any clues like that might point you to where you can find the person.
Now that I have found my answer, I can close a chapter of a search. I was looking for this person to determine if they could be the father of someone. At the time of the person's conception, they had already been incarcerated for 5 years. So, he is eliminated and we can focus on other people. What a ride it was to get to this place, though!

I love reading. It is one of my great passions. I like to read a book where every page is a joy to experience.
I recently read Who Do You Think You Are? (WDYTYA) By Megan Smolenyak, the companion book to the television series of the same name. She refers to herself and other genealogists as "genies", which I find very endearing.
Megan writes about how you can research your own family tree and she provides copious links for the diligent to use in their own searches. She writes in a style that is easily understood and followed by others, and I found myself making notes throughout the time that I was reading, filling a composition notebook with links and observations for use on my own family tree.
I was pleasantly surprised to discover that there was a lot of information in WDYTYA that I did not know about and had not seen before. Some of the links I did not even know existed. WDYTYA shows how to research for the novice. It is the helper who gives you the nudge that you need to point you in the right direction. It is the notebook with all of the links you need, it is a great companion book.
There is a difference between the hardcover and the paperback editions. The hardcover features celebrity genealogy profiles in a color section, whereas the paperback does not. If you are wanting a book solely for researching your family, the paperback should suffice. I found that the celebrity section added some depth and understanding.
I recommend this book strongly for the amount of links that it contains, the easy to follow directions and the delightful way that the author makes a sometimes tricky hobby into something that becomes more vibrant and alive with each found relative.

As I mentioned in my post last weekend, Sunday, my husband and I were married. It was a very simple and intimate ceremony involving close family, a best friend, the minister and his wife. It is everything that we could possibly want, and we are very happy! I made it a point when we got home to go and update all of the family trees that we have online with all of the pertinent information. We don't have the marriage license back from the state yet, but as soon as we do, it will be going in a frame on the wall. I am beyond excited as I was pleasantly surprised to note how beautiful the certificate was when we when to get it. ​Some things that I decided to include in my family tree notes for future generations is all of the guests, their relationship to either one of us, where they were born, when they were born, where they live now and their employment or student status and location. I feel that for future generations, this could be the information that breaks down a road block and it makes me feel good to know that in my own small way, I am making a contribution. Something else that I did was to label each of the digital photos that with the full names of each person that was in that image. I also listed off the specific location that we were married, not just the city, county, state. I will be spending a large part of this summer documenting digital photos with this information. I know that I have written in the past about the tragedy of old photos that had no labels on them. Although they were interesting images, they hold no personal or historical significance to me. I appreciate all of the emails that I have gotten from each and everyone of you wishing me the best of luck for a happy and successful marriage. The wedding, to be honest, is not the part I was concerned about. It is the marriage! Don't forget to check out my links to the right! Hugs to you all, Dixie

I am really fortunate that a good part of my Moore family line is well documented. I was on a site recently looking up my great-great grandfather, Dotta Cusetta Moore. Dotta Cusetta was a farmer in northern Louisiana. As many of the men in his family, he chose to go by his initials instead of his name, so I see a lot of things with "DC" on them instead of his name. Imagine my delight and surprise when I discovered DC's Old Man Draft Registration from 1942. This little gem has remained hidden from me because of the misspellings. DC was 64 at the time of the registration. I would like to think that he looked really good for his age because of the fact that 54 was originally written in, and then the 6 in the 64 was overwritten many times to attempt to cover the 5. There is a lot of good information on this registration, and I want to share all of my findings with you. 1. His name. The ONLY part of my grandfather's name that is correct is his surname, Moore. However, I have run across a lot of spellings of Moore. 2. His place of residence. The address is there, and I can check and see if that address still exists by looking at old maps of the time and seeing how things have changed or remained the same. 3. He did not have a telephone installed at the time of the registration, which is a nice little factoid for gleaning information after the draft. 4. Place of birth. The place of birth is listed as Downsville, Louisiana. If I were searching for a birth record or certificate for DC, this would be an excellent place to start looking. 5. Date of birth. The date of birth matches some of the documents that I have, so I am able to verify that this is my family member. 6. Name and address of person who will always know your address. DC chose to list a relative who lived just down the road from him. 7. Employer's name and address. As stated in the 1940 census, DC was a farmer.DC did not sign the registration card. Instead, the name was written out, he made his mark of X and it was witnessed by Isabel Elliott, the registrar. This lets me know that DC was at the very least functionally illiterate. There may be other details, but I am keeping it simple right now.Now, by forwarding one frame in the search that I was conducting, I am able to see the reverse of the registration card. This is the Registrar's Report. It lists off the race, height, weight, complexion, any other physical characteristics and the signature and location where all of this was conducted.My GG Grandfather was white, 5'2" tall. (Petite!) weighed 138 pounds, had gray hair and blue eyes. His complexion was described as sallow.Isabell, the registrar completed the back as well, signing it at the bottom and dating it.To find this document was a nice reward at the end of a very trying week!My source for this document is the invaluable FamilySearch.Org, a free site where you can view and review millions of records.​

I have been looking at records and family trees for my darling fiance. He happens to be black. I have given cursory looks at helpful tools for black families who are doing family history before I was with my fiance, but I am using them a lot more now and I want to share some of the things that I have discovered.

In marriage records in the south, there may be separate books for white and black people. Black families may be called black, negro or colored. The spelling of names will vary much more wildly than in white records. I have no reason for this, but I am seeing a lot more spellings of last names than in white records. I would like to give a piece of advice that can save you a lot of time: Lose the term "African American" when looking at old records. It is a 20th century phrase, and to be blunt, my husband to be to be finds it very offensive. I was on the FamilySearch.org site this weekend, and I discovered that for the time period that I was looking at, there were state marriage records and there were county records. There were white records and colored records. I looked at the state records and I had no success in my search. I looked in county/coloreds and it was there I had success. I found one of my fiance's great uncle's marriage record. It was actually a court paper for a 200.00 marriage bond. I am not done researching the 200.00 bond, and I will write another article about it when I am done, but listed there was the name of his uncle at the turn of the century, with a relative pledging the money for him to get married.

The way that I even learned about the marriage was through this uncle's death certificate. This was probably one of the most detailed death certificates that I have ever seen. It listed his name, place of birth, parents names and places of birth, and spouse name. I then learned why the death certificate was so detailed. This was a death certificate issued as a result of a homicide. The uncle was murdered. The shooting happened in September, but he did not die until the early part of November. He basically died of complications from the shooting: toxemia and uremia as a result of being shot in the stomach with a revolver. Having never viewed a death certificate from a gunshot before, I have to say, the amount of information that is contained is very detailed. For a genealogist, it is very rich with family facts.

As I mentioned above, this certificate lists names and places, and it lists birth and death dates. I find it very interesting to note that his wife had already passed. At the time of his death, he was less than 55 years old.

I am now searching for what happened to this person between the marriage and his death. It is proving to be very elusive, but hopefully, I will find something.

I spend a lot of time at libraries all over the United States and the world. One of the things that I have grown really used to is making sure that I have the means to capture the information that I find while I am there. Here are the methods and tools that I use. Notebook. Bound and loose leaf. Sometimes, It is easier to go to the library with one small notebook, a handful of change and a USB drive. Other times, I know that I will be there for a while and I want to be as organized as possible. When I am in that mode of research, I bring a loose leaf notebook that I have pre-tabbed to make everything easier for adding to my computer when I get home.

Change or funds for the copier machine. The way to pay for copies generally speaking is one of two ways. Drop some money into the machine or add some money to a card/your library card. Make sure to bring enough money to make twice the amount of copies that you are expecting to make. Not all libraries accept credit cards or are located near ATM's.

USB storage device. Some but not all libraries will allow you to copy information directly to your USB drive. I always bring 3. A small storage with less than a gig, a medium around the 16-32 gig mark, and my jumbo, which is 1T. No matter what, I am able to copy as many documents and photos as I have run across.

Photos with phone or tablet. There have been some weird things that have happened when I have been at libraries doing research. A copier that had a paper jam prevented all of us who wanted to make copies from being able to do so. That particular library did not have the ability to copy to a USB or to email. I pulled out my phone, turned the flash off, took as clear of shots as I could manage and then painstakingly wrote, line by line the information and the source so that I would be able to return to that library in the future and have an easy time of finding my information. Creative thinking to problems in accessing the information. Another library had a microfiche library, but the machine's display screen was badly damaged. I ended up making 100+ copies of pages to find the portion that I was looking for. It was worth the cost because the information that I was looking for was very obscure.

Always notate your records.​I bring pens, pencils and highlighters to make sure that I don't miss something on the pages that I made the trip to find. A link to a family member was once found on an inscription in a church cookbook. You never know where you will find the link you need, but if you don't notate your records, you may never find it again.

It has been discussed on many other forums about how we as family members tend to accept without question the information that is passed to us about our ancestors.

Stop that practice. Make it a point to verify, cite sources and document your findings.The discovery that I made is actually an old one for me, but I wanted to share it here in case anyone out there is hitting dead ends in their searches. I had always been told that a portion of my family was from Louisiana for over 100 years. I never bothered to look anywhere else, even when my search went cold.Doing a US Census search one time, I forgot to limit the search to Louisiana. There, in Alabama was my missing family. Every single member of that family, with the correct birth order and ages! For a moment, I was willing to discount and discard my new lead. After all, my great grandmother had told me straight from her own mouth that her family had been in the state of Louisiana for "over a hundred years." I never doubted the veracity of her statement.

Years later, I was updating this family line. I cross indexed this search on Find A Grave to see if there was a photo or information of any headstones. There was. Below, you will see the photo of the actual headstone for John Marion Moore, husband of Sarah Elizabeth (nee Brittenham OR Brittingham) Moore. The headstone actually gives us a lot of information. Let's look together at the headstone, located below this entry. At the top, there is the emblem for his membership into the Freemasons. You can go to Find A Grave and see my relative there. I have direct linked for convenience purposes.Something to be aware of, as is the case with this relative: The name is actually common, but if you narrow the search to Louisiana, you will quickly find my ancestor. Born in Alabama, John Marion Moore served in the Confederate Army through Alabama, he settled and later died in Louisiana. The rest of the information can be found at Find A Grave, where the information on the main page was very well done. The point that I am making here is that this grandparent--4G to be exact, was documented in family trees and so forth, but I ignored clues because that is not what my family historians told me. After I discovered where my trail picked up, I did a further search on various websites and also conducted in person searches at various libraries and I was able to very easily and quickly pick up the cold trail on my family. His wife is also listed. They are both listed on the stone only by their initials, so I did some sleuthing. Armed with my research, I knew the names that I was looking for was John Marion and Sarah Elizabeth Moore. The initials matched and the dates were near exact to the ones that I had listed in the information that I had in my records.

Location, location, location. In the state of Louisiana, the French influence is felt in many ways. One of them is that we have Parishes, NOT counties. I knew where my family is generally from in Louisiana. I knew that it was the northern part of the state. That helped me when I was looking, because although I am from the southern part of the state, eliminating the common name of John Moore from New Orleans was a boon to my search. (Common name!)

Look for other relatives in that cemetery or family plot. My great grandmother was from Caldwell Parish when I would visit her at her home, which is a short drive from Ouachita Parish. Because I also have family in Ouachita Parish, I was able to ask if we had family buried in the cemetery that I found John Marion Moore listed in. We do. I have loads and loads of family that are interred there. That helped me to make the link, especially when direct relatives of his were also interred there.

Online Photos, if there are any, can help you add or eliminate a person from your family tree. The Find A Grave listing for John Marion Moore has the same photo of him that I think we all must be issued upon birth. It is John Marion Moore with a very full beard, looking off to the side. When I saw the listing with that photo, I knew that we were related! Another person that I was looking for showed a person was assuredly not my relative as the photo made it very clear that they were not the gender that I was looking for. (It was a name that could be either male or female, so there was a reason for confusion.) Seeing that photo saved me a lot of research and I reached out to the person that had the info so that we could both clear up our family trees.

Obituaries and Funeral Cards are a BOON to your search. I know that it can be hard to find these when you are going back a distance, but when you do find them, it can be a huge help. Often, the person that is reporting the death is a relative, and the next of kin of course is a relative. These documents will sometimes list things such as occupation, address, cause of death, name and birthplace of parents and plenty more details that can help in your search. One of the best obituaries that I ran across when I was searching listed the names of the deceased person's parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts and uncles. I am convinced that this person was a genealogist because it was extremely thorough! Always make notes when searching. I even have a file that I call "Cold Case Files". (Because it makes me laugh is why I named it that.) Until I can either rule that person out or include them in my family, they remain in that file. If they are not related (as far as I can prove, anyway) they go into a new file "Red Herrings". I still visit my Red Herrings file about once a year. I have been able to effectively prove some of these people are not related, and surprisingly I also discovered one relative is a distant cousin. Don't get stuck on the dates that you see in print as being right or wrong. My greatest loss of a really great file that I disregarded in a search was because the dates did not match up 100 percent with what I showed in my files. I lament to this day that I have never found that file again in any search that I have ever performed.

Leave breadcrumbs for yourself, no matter what type of research that you are doing. I now bookmark things if I am searching online. I keep paper notebooks with me and make diligent and detailed notes. I know now that I won't remember the information that I am looking at. There is simply too much. If I am searching for 4G grandfather, the bookmarks that I gather will go into the bookmark folder named "John Marion Moore". If those bookmarks can apply to another relative as well, I will drop it into their file. This has saved me a lot of time searching for information.

Make your paper trail easier to follow. When I am making notes in a paper notebook, I write the name and then go back and highlight it if I am using a bound notebook. If I am using loose leaf pages, I divide each person with a tab or at least a piece of tape bent in half and written on with a Sharpie. It may seem extreme, but in the long run, it makes my searches more organized and makes me take the time to take better notes. By being less jumbled, I waste less time of searching within my own notes.

Let me know if any of these tips are helpful, and share your search gaffes here!

Here is a Halloween Eve Challenge for all of you. Think of all of the "skeletons in your closet". You know, the black sheep, the convicts, the spicy ones. Do you have those in mind? ​Let me help with some examples. Anyone that was arrested, fined, jailed, did any time at all. They should be on your list. Anyone who had babies that they placed for adoption. Anyone that was placed for adoption. (Nothing wrong with adoption, I am in that triangle at all sides, but there was a time when there was a lot of shame going on.)Anyone who was a ward of the state, the court, the city. Anyone who resided in an orphanage, a county home or anything that was not a familial home. Anyone who had children out of wedlock and parented them. Anyone who died from anything unusual. (gunshot wounds, knife wounds, abortions, unusual injuries.)Anyone who was involved in unusual car accidents. (Car versus train. Car versus river or bed of water, car versus horse, etc.)Anyone who was committed to a sanitarium or asylum. Anyone who was a fugitive of justice. Anyone who left their country on the run and came to a different country.Tax evaders. Anyone who was in a debtors prison. These are only some of the reasons that a person might have a record for you to look for. If you have heard stories, see if looking them up online is something that you are available to do. You could uncover amazing amounts of information about a person who is a relative. I found a grandparent's records for when he was in prison. It listed his physical appearance, home address, next of kin, what his charges were and how he behaved in prison as well as accounts of money coming in and going out of his bank account there in prison. Additionally, when he was deceased, that was also listed, as well as the exact date and what he died of. Those records were very valuable for breaking down a brick wall in research. Share your brick wall stories with me at PirateDixie@gmail.com